Our quilt guild had a summer challenge to keep us out of trouble during the summer. “Here’s a bundle of fabric, ready to make modified snowball pattern flimsies with. Please bring them back in October either as a flimsy or better yet as a finished quilt. The prize is a draw: $15 for flimsy and $75 for a finished quilt.” I’ve had the flimsy done for a while now but I decided that I should make sure I can get in for the larger prize. The chances would likely be better, as fewer people are likely to finish, I’m thinking.

I thought doing the snowball pattern would make for difficulty matching the triangles in the corners but it didn’t seem to be a problem. I’m not sure why, because there ought to be at least a couple of misses, no? The other thing I’m pleased to report is that I’m getting about as good as I think it’s possible to be at machine applied binding. It took a while to get the feel of it, literally. You have to place the folded over binding and feel with your fingertips where the seam underneath is. It’s a little tricky but clearly, it’s quite possible. I’ve been binding like this for about a year now. Quilting is an amazingly large collection of small skills, isn’t it?

I just stippled it, although it’s such a loose stipple that perhaps it should be called a meander. I’ve been told that my quilting of these community quilts has been too dense; that I’m spending too much time on them. The stitching is 1″ to 2″ apart where the meanders come close. There are the spaces and those are 2″ to 3″ approximately. All of these are well within the 8″ that needlepunched batting allows. If you actually only quilted every 8″, I think it would look too poofy.